I Call Upon the Power of The Internets!

[alianora]

Hi, my favorite people! I need some help, please.

As a special ed teacher, I get rather..irrationally excited when I come across a story, book, tv show, or movie where there is a major character with a disability. I would really love to find more, but to do so, I need your help.

If you happen to know of a book - kid's book, picture book, novel, whatever - a tv show, asian drama, movie, pamphlet, song, WHATEVER - that has a person with a disability as a MAJOR CHARACTER (not main, necessarily, just major), would you please tell me about it?

Now, to clarify: I'm not looking for things like "Radio," or "Riding the Bus with My Sister," so much as I'm looking for things like "Sue Thomas, F.B.EYE," or "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." But whatever you can think of, please share.



Here's my very partial list, which I hope you will help me add to:

Deaf:
Sue Thomas, F.B.EYE - tv - main character
Summer Snow - jdrama - brother
She's All That - tv - brother
Hear No Evil, See No Evil - movie - main
Orange Days - jdrama - main


Blindness:
Hear No Evil, See No Evil - movie - main
Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken - movie - main
Blade Trinity - movie - major character


Emotional/Behavioral:
Torey L Hayden books


Autism:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - book - main
Kristy and the Secret of Susan - book - main
Marathon - jmovie - main


Developmental:
What's Eating Gilbert Grape - movie - brother
The Other Sister - movie - main
South Park - tv - Timmy
I Am Sam - movie - main


Downs Syndrome:
Life Goes On - tv - main

Physical:
Vorkosigan novels - Bujold - main - dwarfism, brittle bones, possible bipolar
South Park - tv - Jimmy
Summer Snow - jdrama - main - medical heart condition
The Station Agent - movie - main - dwarfism
Joan of Arcadia - tv - brother - paraplegic



Drama people, I would LOVE to know of more dramas with people with disabilities.

Comments

[libraryofalexa.livejournal.com]

To add to your list:
movie -- Ice Castles 1978 movie about a champion ice skater who goes blind in a terrible accident and still wants to skate
....hm, I can't seem to find it, but WAY back when I was in Gifted & Talented and we did a whole semester on different disabilities, and one of them was about a gymnast who was born without one arm (so they called her Lefty); we also watched filmstrips on people without both arms and one about a guy who was dating a blind woman so tried being blind for a day (he didn't do so well); there was also one about the people who did the first seeing eye dogs
--done ad nauseum, but The Miracle Worker is actually quite good the first time through
--did anyone mention Rain Man? Autistic Savant

books:
--there's a book that is about the little lame boy who is left behind by the Pied Piper (can't remember its name, though)

----The Secret Garden has a hunchback and a little boy who thinks he's crippled
-----Run, Don't Walk by Harriet May Savitz is about a girl who has become paralyzed from a swimming accident and her initial inability to accept that she has changed
-----"Brock" by Tanya Huff in the anthology Sun In Glory. Brock has down syndrome
---The Brain Ship series by Anne McCaffery. All of the ships have the brain of someone who wouldn't have lived otherwise.

I'm sure there's more, but my brain just went fluffy.

[libraryofalexa.livejournal.com]

Just remembered The Dollhouse Murders where the main character's sister is learning disabled (actual disease not mentioned)